I am a great ape! 🐵🍌

Even in my childhood I was interested in the systematic classification of living things. I was given a set of a few thousand information cards. There was a picture on the front and information on the back. There was also a large index card box. I sorted all living things according to their relationship. Humans and their ancestors were listed in a separate family, which was next to the great apes. However, this made no sense to me. The fact that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than to orangutans told me that they must at least be in the same family, or each should have their own family.

When I was at school, humans were not considered great apes. The idea that humans are just apes is still met with a lot of rejection today. But not in science, where, based on genetic research, humans are listed in a common family, the great apes (Hominidae), together with the orangutan, gorilla and chimpanzee species.

Many people, even those who are inclined towards scientific explanations of evolution, have a problem with this because they see it as a threat to the uniqueness and specialness of humans.

I often argued with my mother that humans are animals. She - who studied biology - was strictly against this. She said that humans have unique characteristics and abilities and that the mind is something that separates us from animals. A widely held view - still today. I do not share this. Humans are animals and, like every animal species, humans have special abilities. The mental abilities that were once only attributed to humans have long been observed in other animal species - albeit in different ways: self-knowledge, logic, language, culture, grief and more. But the idea that animals are similar to us in their perception and thinking is a tough pill for humanity to swallow.